About Me

The Rev Andries Combrink is a Presbyterian Minister of the Gospel. He lives in Centurion, South Africa. He is amongst others a blogger and lyrics writer. To teach the Word of God is his calling, based on the Reformed tradition.

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When we say “rhythm of faith” we refer to a process of response to the grace of God which at least includes:

to see and hear, come back, praise, worship, give thanks, get up, and go.

This rhythm of faith is explained by the story of the grateful leper.

Luke 17: 11 – 19. Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosymet him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet (worshiping) and thanked him — and he was a Samaritan.Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner? Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

The witness of this one Samaritan is much more than a generalized grateful response. It is shared with us as his exemplary, specific journey of response to the grace of God. But if we truly believe in the Word that becomes flesh and changes everything in our lives, we have to believe that our responses to Christ’s interventions in our lives has to be as concrete and real, as the gracious encounters with the Lord that made us grateful.

The response of the one leper, (we only later find out he is a Samaritan, a marginalized foreigner) is emphasized and celebrated in this passage as a model of discipleship, of living out the rhythm faith.

His response to his healing is not just a singular expression, not just about giving thanks, but gives witness to a trajectory, a process, a spectrum of reaction that changed his life.

This story asks of us to consider the response of this outsider as someone who models the depth and breadth of our possible responses to God’s love, healing and salvation.

All were healed.

But only one was saved.

Only one journeyed the trajectory of faith. Only this Samaritan represents those who

see, come back, praise, worship, give thanks, get up, and go.

He was saved because he saw that he too could be a member of the Jesus-community, where even the despised, for example a Samaritan, can experience the complete rhythm of God’s favour.

Through the response of the Samaritan with leprosy, we are invited to reflect on how the fullness of what salvation might mean for us happens when we too see, come back, praise, worship, give thanks, get up, and go, as the life changing responses to God’s grace in our lives and in the lives of those we reach in the Name of Christ!The message is clear: Grateful believers live the rhythm of faith, to the full!